ARKY 201: Comprehensive Review of Archaeological Methods, Dating, and Research

Flashcards covering archaeological seriation, geoarchaeology, site formation processes, relative and absolute dating methods, survey sampling designs, library research strategies, and excavation techniques.

What is seriation dating?

A relative dating method that assigns chronological sequences to sites by tracking how the "form" (shape, size, and material) of artifacts changes over time based on popularity peaks and declines.

What are the key manufacturing characteristics, origin, and time period of Delftware ceramics?

Delftware ceramics are 17th-century, Dutch-manufactured, soft-bodied ceramics handmade by craftsmen, featuring colorful hand-painted decorations and a pale blue cast produced by a tin enamel finish.

What are the key manufacturing characteristics, origin, and time period of Creamware ceramics?

Creamware ceramics are 18th-century, British-manufactured, hard-bodied clay ceramics produced semi-mechanically or by hand, characterized by a yellowish cast from their glazes and often decorated in blue, brown, or black.

What are the key manufacturing characteristics, origin, and time period of Pearlware ceramics?

Pearlware ceramics are 19th-century, British- or American-made, mass-produced ceramics made of harder, denser clay bodies with colorful decorative designs and a blue-ish cast created by their glazes.

What is the definition of geoarchaeology?

The study of soils, sediments, landforms, and stratigraphy through the application of geological principles and methods to investigate archaeological sites and answer questions regarding past human activity.

What is the geological distinction between sediments and soils?

Sediments are inorganic and organic materials deposited on the earth's surface by natural physical processes (such as wind or water), whereas soils are in situ developmental sequences formed in place through weathering and pedogenesis.

What are the three primary soil horizons and the processes that define each?

The A Horizon (the zone of accumulation of organic matter and eluviation/leaching), the B Horizon (the subsoil zone of deposition or illuviation), and the C Horizon (unweathered parent material).

What is a paleosol (or buried A horizon)?

An ancient, buried soil horizon representing a stable, ancient land surface that supported vegetation before being buried by subsequent sedimentary deposits.

What is a marker bed in geoarchaeology, and what is a specific regional example?

A distinct, widespread layer of known chronological age that serves as a stratigraphic reference across sites, such as Mazama volcanic ash dated to 6,730 \times 10^0 \text{ BP} \text{ (or } 6,730 \begin{matrix} +45 \ -45 \text{ BP} \begin{pmatrix} \text{years} \begin{pmatrix}).

What structural and cultural sequence illustrated below causes reverse stratigraphy in earth-roofed pithouses?

Repeated cycles of occupation, roof teardown, burning, and rim re-excavation down to sterile ground, which piles earlier refuse and sediment onto house rims and churns them onto newer roofs, placing older material over newer layers.

What is the matrix in an archaeological site?

The physical medium or sediment that surrounds, holds, and supports archaeological finds.

How do provenance (provenience) and association differ?

Provenience refers to the precise three-dimensional position of an object within the matrix, while association refers to two or more archaeological items occurring together within the same matrix.

What is the difference between primary context and secondary context?

Primary context is the original, undisturbed depositional setting of an artifact, whereas secondary context occurs when a find's original location has been altered or displaced by later human activity or natural processes.

How do systemic context and archaeological context differ?

Systemic context refers to artifacts during their active participation in a living cultural system (manufacture, use, reuse, and discard), while archaeological context refers to remains after entering the ground, where they are subjected to ongoing natural and cultural post-depositional processes.

What is taphonomy?

The study of the post-mortem and post-depositional processes of site disturbance, preservation, decay, and destruction that transform archaeological remains.

What is an unconformity, and what does it indicate about human occupation at a site?

A temporal break in a stratigraphic sequence represented by natural geological deposits (such as river silt, windblown sand, or volcanic ash) that separates two cultural strata, indicating a period of site abandonment.

What is the Law of Superposition?

A foundational geological principle stating that in undeformed sedimentary layers, the oldest strata lie at the bottom and layers become progressively younger toward the top.

What is the Law of Strata Identified by Their Contents?

The principle that distinct depositional units can be differentiated by their unique artifact contents, allowing archaeologists to define cultural phases by the relative stratigraphic positions of diagnostic assemblages.

What are three major technological transitions identified in the prehistoric projectile sequence of the Northern Plains?

The transition from the handheld spear (Early Period), to the atlatl or spear-thrower (Middle Period), to the bow and arrow (Late Period).

What is frequency seriation, and what visual pattern does it create?

A relative dating method that measures changes in the proportional abundance or percentage frequency of artifact styles or types across time, producing lenticular "battleship curves."

What type of projectile point is shown below, and what is its established age range?

A Pelican Lake projectile point, which dates between approximately $3,250$ and $1,500$ years ago.

What historical Mayan document is shown below, and what specific date is inscribed upon it?

The Tablet of the 96 Glyphs from Palenque, Mexico, which records the date November 15, AD 783.

What is dendrochronology?

An absolute dating method that establishes calendar dates by matching patterns of annual growth rings in archaeological wood specimens to a regional master chronological sequence.

What is the half-life of Carbon-14 ($^{14}\text{C}$), and what materials can it date?

The half-life is $5730\text{ years}$ (or ca. $5700\text{ years}$); it can date organic materials such as wood, charcoal, bone, ivory, shell, and plant remains.

Why is calibration necessary for radiocarbon ($^{14}\text{C}$) dates?

Atmospheric concentrations of $^{14}\text{C}$ have fluctuated over time due to solar activity and magnetic field variations, requiring calibration curves (built using tree rings) to convert raw radiocarbon years into calendar years.

How does Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating differ from conventional radiocarbon dating?

AMS accelerates ions to high velocities (several percent the speed of light) to count individual $^{14}\text{C}$ atoms directly, requiring substantially smaller sample sizes and producing higher precision.

What physical mechanism does thermoluminescence (TL) dating measure?

It measures electrons trapped in crystalline lattice defects due to natural background radiation; reheating the artifact releases these trapped electrons as photons of light.

What is Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating, and when is it particularly useful?

A luminescence dating technique that measures trapped electrons in mineral grains stimulated by light, useful for dating sedimentary deposits that lack organic material.

How does Potassium-Argon ($\text{K-Ar}$) dating function, and what does it date?

It measures the radioactive decay rate of $^{40}\text{K}$ into $^{40}\text{Ar}$ gas within surrounding volcanic rocks and minerals; it dates the geological matrix around a fossil rather than the fossil itself.

What are the sample materials and effective age range for Uranium Series Dating?

It measures the decay of uranium isotopes ($^{235}\text{U}$ and $^{238}\text{U}$) into daughter isotopes ($^{230}\text{Th}$) in calcium carbonate deposits (limestone bedrock, stalagmites, flowstone) aged between $50,000$ and $1\text{ million years old}$.

What does fission-track dating measure, and what materials is it applied to?

It counts microscopic damage trails (fission tracks) left by the spontaneous fission of $^{238}\text{U}$ in natural volcanic glasses and minerals (such as obsidian and basalt), dating specimens from $100,000$ to $20\text{ million years old}$.

What four topographic zones are represented on the survey sampling exercise grid map?

Rivers, Floodplain, Foothills, and Mountains.

What are the seven standard stages of an archaeological research project?

1) Formulation (Research Design), 2) Logistics, 3) Survey, 4) Excavation, 5) Analysis, 6) Conservation, and 7) Publication.

What is the primary difference between non-probabilistic and probabilistic survey sampling?

Non-probabilistic (judgmental) sampling targets areas based on archaeological intuition and cannot be mathematically generalized, whereas probabilistic sampling selects survey units randomly, allowing statistical generalizations about the whole region.

What survey sampling strategy is shown in the diagram below, and when is it employed?

Stratified random sampling, which divides a survey universe into distinct environmental or geographic zones (strata) and samples randomly within each zone when the landscape is not uniform.

What sampling strategy is illustrated below, and how does it select units?

Systematic unaligned sampling, which combines simple random sampling and systematic sampling by creating grid blocks and selecting random horizontal and vertical coordinates within each to prevent alignment bias.

What is the definition of conservation in archaeology?

The process of physically and chemically treating artifacts, ecofacts, and features to halt decay and, where feasible, reverse the deterioration process.

How do primary, secondary, and tertiary academic sources differ?

Primary sources are original artifacts or documents created during the historical period under study; secondary sources are scholarly interpretations or analyses of primary evidence; tertiary sources compile and summarize primary and secondary works without original research.

What does phrase searching accomplish in library databases, and how is it executed?

It forces the database to retrieve words immediately adjacent to each other in exact order by surrounding the multi-word term with quotation marks (e.g., "black bear").

What are the four core criteria used to critically evaluate research sources?

Authority (author/publisher credibility), Relevance (applicability to the research question), Evidence (supporting data, methodology, and peer review), and Bias (neutrality vs. partiality).

What are the loan duration and lost item fee policies for students at the University of Calgary Libraries?

Students receive unlimited loans for up to $250\text{ days}$, and any lost borrowed items incur a standard replacement fee of $150\text{ dollars}$.

When is vertical trenching favored as an excavation method?

When investigating deep stratigraphic deposits, mounds, or multi-phase structures (such as Mayan temples) to reveal the complete chronological sequence of occupation and construction.

Why is horizontal (area) excavation the most appropriate strategy for investigating Neolithic Orkney village households?

Because the research question focuses on household daily activities and spatial layout across a single village occupation just prior to abandonment, requiring broad contiguous exposures of the living surface.

Why is vertical trenching recommended for exploring the construction history of multi-layered Maya monuments?

Because later Maya builders erected new monuments directly on top of older Preclassic and Classic structures in successive phases like layers of an onion, requiring vertical profiles to view the chronological progression.